Pluskylang Great Film overall

Megamind To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Caryl It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

harley quinn The acting was horrible and the songs sucked. Also the story made no sense why did a well off mother send her vegan normal child to live with her poor God obsessed molester father who he never meet for a summer in the hood? It wasn't good It feels like they are trying to say something but the acting is so bad you can't feel it. Your better off talking to your grandmother and thinking about it your self because this is a confused moral with a movie made around it and it should be the opposite. We should be trying to understand the characters the reasons why they made there choices and the reasons why they think the way they do. The mother should of been shown at least once in the beginning to give some exposition on why she is leaving her son there or even why he never meet his grandfather and if it's because he is a molester then why did she send him there? The boy should of had more personality then just being a smart mouth that doesn't want to be there and I don't blame him. Also the scenes when they just talking, should be touching moments it just feels like they are reading out of a book. low budget or not this is horrible.

SnoopyStyle A middle-class boy from Atlanta is forced to spend the summer with his deeply religious grandfather in a poor housing project in Red Hook, Brooklyn.Spike Lee wrote and directed this boring tale. This rambling tale gets very tiresome. Did Spike Lee turn anti-religion? The story turns even uglier with a twist that comes out of nowhere. I'm uncertain about what is happening to Spike Lee. After great successes in the 90s and the 2000s, is he on the road to big time experimentation? What is going on? I don't get it. This movie is a mess. Maybe it's some kind of personal project. But even then, I'd expect more skills than he's showing here.

carolina blu Just watched this on Netflix so this may be a bit outdated. Anyway, I was born and raised in Brooklyn and generally enjoy Spike Lee's movies. Yes, he can be a bit cliché in the messages but what Spike does best is give the viewer spectacular cinematography. I also watch mostly documentaries, and as someone who works in urban education I'm drawn to movies that are set in realistic environments. I'm also a huge fan of Clarke Peters since The Wire. With that said, I was excited to see the movie and expected to be impressed. Yeahhh...not so much! Here are my issues with this movie:I was highly disappointed in the main actors as their performances were often overly-dramatic and they delivered extremely stereotypical lines that, at times, made me roll my eyes or raise my eyebrows in a moment of sarcasm. When 'Chazz" pronounced "liked" as "likedd-edd-ed," I found that so unbelievable. Wasn't she supposed to be a girl who grew up in the church listening to sermons and proper English? Didn't make sense why she would sound so ignorant. She was overall very extra and inauthentic. "Flik's" character came across as whiny and unemotional as I was unmoved by his performance. The "thug", played by Nate Parker, was also unconvincing. Casting wise, the only plus was Clarke Peters (a real actor) who gave an emotionally charged performance. Also, the script was heavy on delivering subliminal messages about life for many individuals living in any urban or struggling area. While I happen to think there was validity in those messages, it started feeling redundant by the middle of the movie. Not to mention it took forty minutes into the movie before we got to the thick of the plot.Bottom line is, there was a decent movie hidden somewhere among all the preachy, whiny, and clichéd dialogue-- if you can stand the bad acting!

RGMike Saw the new Spike Lee, "Red Hook Summer", in an empty theater. Not surprising, as it's gotten some bad reviews, but I kinda liked it. Yes, it's a bit of a mess and the child actors really are awful (seriously, Spike, you couldn't find talented black kids in BROOKLYN??) but I think the critics missed the boat. It struck me as Spike's response to Tyler Perry-ism and a rather pointed comment on poor black people's love of church, even tho' Jeezus ain't done nothing' for them lately -- nobody seems to have noticed, much less mentioned that in any review I've read. The great Clarke Peters (of "The Wire" and "Treme") is wonderful. Loved the super-saturated color cinematography. A few things make no sense (tho' explaining would mean spoilers) but overall, worth a look.